Posts Tagged ‘Antebellum Plantation’

In addition to touring the grounds surrounding the Wessyngton mansion, National Black Arts Festival members and guests walked in the footsteps of Baker’s ancestor in the slave cabin area of the plantation.The group went inside a restored slave cabin built ca. 1830.In 1860, there were 274 enslaved African Americans on the plantation, housed in forty log cabins. At the onset of the Civil War, Wessyngton held the largest African American population in the state of Tennessee and was the largest tobacco producer in America.

Housing for slaves varied from plantation to plantation depending on the owners.Most slave quarters were generally arranged in avenues or streets and located behind the mansion or ‘Big House.’They were strategically placed to give the owner or overseer a clear view of the slaves, so their activities could be easily monitored.

The slave settlement at Wessyngton Plantation, however, did not fit this pattern.The lack of a clustered settlement pattern at Wessyngton was somewhat unusual during antebellum times.This was primarily due to the hilly topography of the plantation.The scattered pattern gave the slaves at Wessyngton more freedom and made it far more difficult to keep them under constant surveillance.

Typically, slave housing at Wessyngton consisted of hand-hewn one-room log cabins measuring 20 by 20 square feet with brick end chimneys.Some cabins were 18 by 36 square feet.Each cabin had log flooring and a loft, where children slept.

Each cabin housed an average of six individuals.Family sizes varied depending on the number births, deaths and marriages.

In 1860 Wessyngton Plantation was the largest tobacco plantation in the United States. The Washington family also held the largest number of enslaved African Americans (274) in the state of Tennessee. 187 of them were held on what was called the “Home Place” near the Wessyngton mansion. Eighty-seven others were held on a part of the plantation known was the “Dortch Place.”